So ladies and gentlemen it's half-time on this incredibly exciting and scientifically accurate account of whether England is better than Germany. Currently the scores are shocking, with Germany winning 4-0 on account of the plague of chavs that are slowly eating away at our country's age-old values such as yorkshire puddings and tweed jackets, and replacing them with McDonalds and Adidas 'Twill Tops' respectively. Germany still happily clings to its stereotypes, with Bratwursts sold on street corners, beer remaining an integral part of society, and lederhosen gracing every pair of legs that walk by. Ok maybe not the lederhosen. Hopes and dreams my friends, hopes and dreams.
It's up to Berlin to cement this impending victory, and forever make this blog a point of reference for pub discussions worldwide. So without further ado (or dellusions of grandeur), let's get on with the show.
One of Carsten's friends - Murat - drove us to Berlin with the aid of his trusty TomTom. First stop was the Magic Mountain climbing centre - a 30m high warehouse surrounded by climbing walls, with a huge bouldering cave in the middle. I had always been impressed by my local haunt The Castle, but this had me looking on goggle-eyed and crawling with anticipation. Which one first!? I thought to myself. Straight walls, overhangs, boulders and caves that opened at the top with routes going up and out of the centre were making me practically salivate at the prospect of strapping on some tight shoes and scaling my way up those prettily coloured holds. Of course any amount of lyrical waxing I use to describe the place is likely only to get fellow climbers excited so... I'll spare you. Suffice to say that - so far - this is the best indoor climbing centre I have come across.
Germany: 1
After a good few hours of climbing we jumped back into the car, forearms burning, and made our way to Murat's flat grabbing some delicious noodles on the way from a random chinese restaurant. We sat and napped for a while, waiting for the evening to arrive when we would venture out onto the underground and begin our journey into the nightlife of Berlin. One of the difficulties an Englishman faces when wandering around this country is that everyone speaks German. Who'd have thought? Thankfully I had two natives with me so I was pretty sure I could just sit back and let them guide me round like a confused pet goat but alas, their navigational skills were... questionable... to say the least. In a bizarre twist of fate it was me who took charge and led my two poor, confused German goats around the Berlin U-Bahn towards Freidrichstraße - the hub of all things nightlife-related, but ultimately, their lack of directional skills meant that they lost Germany a good 2 points.
Germany: -2
England: 1 (for taking initiative)
Whenever I go to a new city, no matter the country, I will always go somewhere that isn't particularly great. A bad boozer; a mediocre restaurant; a club that refuses to play any good music or a Burger King that does the old-style chips and not the amazing battered ones we have here. In Berlin, this just did not happen. The climbing centre, the random chinese restaurant, the bakery outside Murat's flat, the italian restaurants, the pubs, the bars, the shishas, everything... It was all brilliant. When we arrived at the Freidrichstraße we started searching for some much-needed food and found it in the aforementioned Italian restaurant. The night was particularly mild so we ordered some massive pizzas and sat outside with a beer while we watched the chefs through the window making fresh dough before they threw it in the oven, the aromas of which mingled with garlic and basil, prosciutto and cheese. They knocked on the window and we practically ran inside and grabbed the pizzas. "Gracie" I said
"Prago" came the reply.
Man I'm so cool I thought.
After we wolfed those down in a manner reminiscent of starving wild dogs we started to walk across town to the area famed for its great bars (amongst other less savoury pursuits). After an extreme cross-city trek around some of less-visited areas of Berlin we heard some cheering coming from across the park and decided to go and find out what it was. Turns out it was a bunch of loud Australians all gearing up for one of many hostel pub-crawls being run in the area with a particularly screechy girl ringleading and pouring Jagermeister down everybody's throats. Ahhhhh Australians - more cultured than a sanctuary of art-enthused, tai-chi practicing, restauranteur Buddhist monks. "Hello mate" I said to one bloke with a massive chest and no discernable neck. "What's going on?"
"'ow ya gowin mayte?! We're off to get FACKED!"
"YEAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!" comes the agreement from a couple of his mates
"Right, so what's all this? Some kind of birthday?"
"Ya could call it that! Or ya could call it a PISS-UP!"
"YEAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!"
"O...K..." Back to Carsten and Murat "lets follow these guys"
So we did. Although not to the pub they went to. They helpfully led us to the area we'd been looking for and we left them to the Irish pubs with sticky floors and instead settled on a nice bar with some outdoor heating, seating and shishas. We stayed there for a while teaching Murat some English-isms, drinking German beer and showing the barman how to make a Flatliner (half tequila, half white sambuca and tobasco sauce - in case you're wondering), who then gave us a round of the shot that he'd made up on the house. The weather was beautifully mild, everyone around us was having a great time, and the barman was just awesome. All things must come to an end though so we paid the bill, left a good tip and wandered off asking random strangers where we could find a good club, and the rest of the night was spent karaoking and dancing the night away before eventually making our way back across town to Murat's bachelor pad.
Dawn came and went I'd imagine. It usually does. We got up in the afternoon, had some much-needed coffee and pastries and set about exploring some of the tourist attractions around the city, the result of which can be seen in the pictures. We did try to climb the wall outside the City Hall at one point but without proper climbing shoes it was proving rather hard on the fingers, so we gave up and went to get a currywurst and meet one of Carsten's friends from Australia. A coffee and a meal later, Murat was driving us to the airport while I was nursed to sleep by the heat unique to the interior of a car and the pattering of heavy rain on the windows. My foray into East Germany was at an end, and so was the scoring system regarded my many to be the standard in judging a country's coolness. Final scores are as follows...
Germany 3 - 1 England
"But wait!" I hear you say "There are so many things that weren't included! So many things in your report alone that weren't scored!" and to you I say "BRAVO" and pat you on the back for your clever observations. I could have included more granted, but the truth is... I simply couldn't be bothered. The scores were messing up the flow of my text and anything I thought of, which would predictably boost England's score at the end would be, well, predictable. And so my friends we have this anti-climax which I would like to proclaim as the 'Monty Python's Holy Grail' of blog entries. The scores were the policemen, and this paragraph is where they arrest everyone at the end instead of the huge battle that they planned but couldn't because of a lack of funding (creative juices in my case). See what I did there?
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